No Sucker Punch - Rather, A Hyena's Bite
by Manchester
Summary: Wrapped in a straitjacket, chained at the ankles, all while stuck in a hellhole of a mental ward - Xander Harris is not in any kind of a good mood. And then, a girl comes along…
1. Chapter 1

At the back of their small procession walking through the dimly-lit corridors of the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane sometime in the early 1960's, a lustful orderly was enjoying the view. Despite having all the sexiness of a potato sack, the rough cloth dress worn by the young woman meekly following the other orderly ahead in front still stretched tightly over the first-rate ass of this blank-faced bitch. From the looks of things, she was going to be one of the numb inmates who didn't react to anything, much less cause trouble. That made her a prime candidate for a little tapping of whatever orifice-

Lost in his vile thoughts, the orderly shifted slightly in his path, taking him closer to the corridor wall on his right. He next extended his pace a bit to crowd up closer to the girl and look over her shoulder in preparation for checking out her tits. During all this, the orderly's right sleeve brushed up unnoticed against the cell door the trio were passing by.

An immediate reaction came from the inhabitant lurking in that specific cell:

" _RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!_ "

The three people in the corridor reacted identically, all of them violently flinching away from that savage snarl. Backs slammed into the opposite corridor wall, to be fearfully pressed against this. Sweat breaking out over their bodies, the girl and her guards stared in shared shock at the cell door.

This heavy steel portal seemed to be literally vibrating from the unrelenting, animalistic growl coming from behind there. That sound was subconsciously evoking in every human there the primal memories of their ancestors' existence, well before the discovery of fire and using tools. In that long-distant age, nature was indeed red in tooth and claw when it came to a certain two-legged species only a few dozen generations out of the trees. These shambling creatures trying to survive a very dangerous world had then just enough intelligence to be dimly aware of how much their approaching fanged death was going to hurt them.

As one, the orderlies reached for their truncheons. Trembling grips with damp hands clutching these clubs gave them both just a bare measure of comfort. The orderly furthest up the corridor and also thankfully the farthest away from the door stuttered through dry lips, "J- J- Jesus Christ, Mike! Why'd you set him off?"

Desperately trying to control his bladder, Mike whined over the head of the girl huddled between them, "I didn't mean to! Look, Stan, let's just get the fuck outta here and deliver this cunt to Doctor Gorski!"

"Damn straight!" husked Stan. He sidled away along the wall for a few steps, before reaching out to brutally grab the frail shoulder of the cowering girl who hadn't moved a muscle. Yanking her along, Stan maintained his vicious grip to then frog march into an uncertain fate the latest inmate of a mental institution with a decidedly evil reputation.

Mike was of course right at their heels, as all three people fled down the corridor.

Still shivering while being shoved headlong at a frantic clip, the delicate beauty who'd soon be known to all as Babydoll tried to deal with being so roughly jerked out of her stupor. This dazed state had lasted ever since her parents' deaths and all the other tragedies thereafter. These unfortunate events had ended with her being committed by a wicked stepfather into the greatly-suspect care and treatment of the county medical authorities.

Now, despite her overpowering terror, she was beginning to notice things again. Such as the floor plan of her new prison, a cupboard for keys to the hallway sliding steel doors, and much else…

Back in the cell, a shaggy head which had a white horizontal streak along the lank hair on the side of his skull was again laid down to rest upon the stained concrete floor. Slowly halting his maddened snarl, a filthy man clad only in an equally grimy straightjacket curled up as best as he could with his legs shackled together.

Beginning to return to his interrupted slumber, an enraged grimace shown past an untrimmed, matted beard and a hollow crater for a left eye didn't shift in the slightest. The inmate listed under the asylum records as "Identity - Unknown" closed his remaining eye and tried to escape the only way he could now, into a deep, restless sleep.

Except, an instant later, Xander Harris was wide awake and staring intently at the door of his cell. He'd been doing it so long that an actual effort was needed to relax his facial muscles from their near-permanent mask of fury. But now, the expression upon his visage was one of actual…puzzlement?

Without hesitation, Xander squirmed forward on his stomach, ignoring the cold concrete rubbing against his raw skin. He didn't stop moving until his nose was pressed up against the flap of the lower door slot where the orderlies dispensed through this the double metal bowls containing his daily slop and water. Not that anyone dared to actually reach into his cell. Instead, those pricks used their truncheons to push the flap open and then shove the bowls in there. A small hole had been punched in the rims of both bowls, with a string knotted there to each. After clumsily slurping by his mouth alone what bare sustenance Xander received, these strings were used to hastily remove the bowls, all without the door being opened.

Anyway, Xander took a thorough sniff of the somewhat cleaner air coming through the cracks in the door slot. This was why he'd made his painful way there, since he was almost due for his monthly hosing down. This usually occurred around then, or when the patrolling orderlies couldn't stand any more the stench issuing from their prisoner's cell. Hey, let them try to go to the bathroom in chains and a straightjacket. Not to mention there for damn sure wasn't a toilet, or even a pot or bucket. Just an open drain he had to squat over, once he'd done the contortions necessary to get up on his feet.

Right now, Xander was willing to kill for a single sheet of Charmin Ultra.

On second thought, he was much more willing to kill a _lot_ of people over a _lot_ of things.

That definitely included having pails of bleach tossed into Xander's general direction while he crouched in a corner opposite the drain hole, his back to the door. Next came getting sprayed with pummeling force by ice-cold water from a hose held by an uneasy orderly backed up by a half-dozen other hospital assistants wielding axe handles to keep him from lunging at all and sundry.

Wimps. So far, he'd only managed to bite off just _one_ finger throughout the entire hectic process.

Xander dismissed those thoughts, to instead concentrate on what he was smelling from outside over his rank aroma. Taking long, slow breaths through his nose, the New Council associate tried to think past the crushing sensation in his brain caused by far too many occupants presently ensconced in there.

At last, the man's face worked, for him to next utter in a harsh, grating voice the first word he'd let escape from his lips for close to six months:

"Pack?"


	2. Chapter 2

In the crowded storage room she was sharing with her new friends, Babydoll frowned down at the stolen asylum map laid out on top of a battered metal table. After several seconds' further consideration of this building guide, she looked around at the others there. These were four more resolute girls about her age who for their own reasons had joined together in the escape attempt Babydoll was planning. Like her, they also used nicknames instead of their real names as a minor act of defiance against those in authority here who were determined to control every aspect of the inmates' lives.

Going in a counterclockwise direction around the table, there was Amber the tall Oriental girl, Blondie whose hair and complexion were actually dark, and finally the two sisters who called themselves Rocket and Sweet Pea. It was this pair of siblings that Babydoll now addressed while thoughtfully running the tip of her index finger along the corridor marked on the map, until this digit came to a stop pointing right at a specific cell.

"You've been here the longest, right? Well, why's someone keeping a wild animal in there that growls at everybody? It caught me by surprise when I got brought that way my first day inside."

Faces became wary among the others at this unexpected question. An oppressive silence descended at once inside the storage room. Babydoll stared in disbelief at the quartet of females now uneasily trading glances between themselves, until they all looked back at their new leader. Finally, it was Rocket who provided a reluctant answer.

"It's not an animal, Babydoll. See, this place is horrible, no question about it, but there are some people who _need_ to be put here. If we ever get out of this damn jail, the only thing I'll ever be glad about it is the guy who's locked up in that cell will stay there the rest of his life."

Gaping at Rocket over what she'd just heard, Babydoll blurted, "Huh? What's all that about?"

This time, it was Sweet Pea who spoke up. Shrugging, she told Babydoll, "I dunno if it's true or not, but the story we heard went like this. Maybe six months ago, a farmer out in the country heard one night the pigs he was raising in his barn squealing fit to bust. The farmer found his shotgun and went to see what was wrong, thinking there might be a fire or some animal bothering his pigs. He found the barn door smashed open by somebody, and then he heard really nasty screaming sounds coming from inside, like the pigs were getting murdered."

Caught up in the story, Babydoll eagerly waited for Sweet Pea to go on. This other girl now had a grim expression on her face while she continued, "That's because they were. The farmer found in the barn a mostly naked guy wearing only scraps of clothes and completely covered with blood inside the pig pen. That crazy man had just torn those animals into pieces with his bare hands, and he was _eating_ them, raw."

All the other girls listening to this in the storage room shuddered in unison.

Nodding in solemn agreement, Sweet Pea then revealed, "The farmer said afterwards he'd only fired his shotgun when the lunatic then went for him. He mostly missed, except for a few pellets which knocked out the pig killer. This gave the farmer enough time to call the police, who took one look at the whole mess and put the out-cold cause of it in handcuffs and manacles. Which was really lucky, since the guy soon woke up and nearly tore these off him, anyway. After a huge fight with all the cops, they managed to subdue him again, and doctors were called in to figure out what was going on."

Sweet Pea sadly shook her head. "They never did, though. Nobody could find out who he was, where he came from, or what was the matter with him. The guy himself either wouldn't or couldn't say a single reasonable word to anyone. There weren't any clues in what was left of his clothes, besides. In the end, the doctors gave up, and committed him to the nearest mental institution, which just happened to be this one. He's been in that cell ever since, never being let out for any reason. The orderlies really hate him, because he scares them stiff by showing how much he wants to hurt all of them. We don't know anything more, Babydoll."

Glancing around in her astonishment to see apprehensive confirmation by the others over what she'd just listened to, the latest member of their company reacted with a very hollow, "Oh."

Taking a few moments to gather herself, Babydoll took a deep breath. She then declared, "All right, that's something to remember in our plans. Now, so far, we've got the map and a lighter for making the hallway doors unlock. Rocket, you said you know where to get what we need next, a knife?"

Clustering tighter around the table, the small group of young women plotting a daring breakout focused their attention upon the girl about to tell them what she had recently found out.

* * *

From his all too familiar posture of lying naked except for his straightjacket face down on the concrete floor of his hated cell room, Xander Harris closed his remaining eye. This man then did something he'd scrupulously avoided for years.

He wished out loud. Really, _really_ hard.

"I wish for rescue. I wish for freedom. I wish for a freakin' pair of pants, already!"

Cautiously letting his eyelid crack open just a fraction, Xander peered around his otherwise empty cell. Nope, no sign of the big cheese himself, much less any of D'Hoffryn's demonic minions. There wasn't even a ghostly, satisfied whisper of "Wish granted!"

Typical. Any other time, those certain kinds of demons would be lined up around the block, waiting patiently for some Scooby to forget themselves and let loose the supremely dangerous w-word. But now, when he could actually use their help and was still willing to pay nearly any price for it, those lazy bastards were taking a break.

Somehow, someday, he was gonna file a complaint about this. It'd involve a neatly filled-out grievance form, a rubber band, a miniature spiky cactus plant, and a sledgehammer. All combined together with the lower alimentary canal of the first unfortunate vengeance demon he could catch!

Of course, Xander inwardly grudged, there was a genuine reason why none of Anya's old buddies had shown up. He didn't have to go far to confirm this. Only to the inside of his head, in fact.

Closing his eye again, Xander let out a long sigh. He centered his consciousness the way he'd learned long ago. There was the inner sensation of his awareness sinking into absolute blackness, and then he was awake once more in the most private mental place of Alexander LaVelle Harris.

Helplessly stretched out supine in his mindscape, a human's glowing life-force which was known in Asian culture as the _chi_ now glared upwards. His evident ire was given no notice by the four figures hovering over this misty-white form lying on his back. Instead, Sineya, Solder-Boy, Swimmer, and one very special other kept on restraining their host while these possessions absorbed from him the magical vitality they needed for their continued existence in this dimension lacking virtually any trace whatsoever of magic.


	3. Chapter 3

Should anyone in the mental institution at that specific moment had worked up the courage to open the thick metal door and nervously look inside, they would've seen a remarkably peaceful scene. In there, a supremely filthy man stinking to high heaven was lying on his stomach, his remaining eye closed in profound slumber while drooling from his slack mouth onto the concrete floor.

However, despite this seemingly placid sight, Xander Harris was in truth wide awake elsewhere in his soul, and feeling extremely cranky. Still unable to take back more than a fraction of control over his body, both here and out in the real world, just like he'd failed in the last half-dozen months either, this man resentfully eyed one by one the quartet responsible for this in their positions at the cardinal points around a magical representation of his human form.

Sineya crouched down almost close enough to touch, just a little beyond his feet, and unblinkingly gazed at him through her matted dreadlocks. Eyes glinted among the deep shadows cast by this dangling hair. The millennia-old First Slayer didn't move the slightest, much less acknowledge his grouchy stare in return. Just like this young woman had been doing so ever since they'd all found themselves here.

Rolling his eye to the right, Xander next glowered at Soldier-Boy standing crisply at attention in his Army fatigues a step back from the side of the man lying on the mindscape floor. This member of the armed forces had been in his flawless imitation of a statute just as long as had Sineya, but at least that other guy didn't have a face to icily regard Xander the same way Little Miss Slayer was doing. Instead, that Halloween possession had smooth, unbroken skin covering his entire features rather than the usual mouth, nose, and eyes. This left only a blank expanse of flesh there with no clue to what his original appearance might've been. Xander had eventually come to the conclusion this was due to never learning the true identity of the military dude who'd taken over his body on that long-ago holiday night.

Well, at any rate, that made some kind of weird logic. The same applied to still carrying within his subconscious a tiny spark of the Slayer Spirit after the Scoobies' magical link-up with each other to help Buffy defeat FrankenAdam. Both had come into his mind and then made themselves at home there for good, regardless of Xander's thoroughly aggravated opinion about these unexpected guests. But the third member of their company couldn't be explained by that at _all._

Xander glanced over to the left, at where Swimmer maintained its distance while in full Creature from the Black Lagoon manifestation. The Sunnydale native's long, slow stare at this result from his brief sojourn with the swim team now had the usual mixture of grumpiness plus actual bemusement over never figuring out just why getting fed Coach Marin's drugs had landed yet another mental intruder inside his head. Not when back then it'd been his body changing into a fish-man, rather than his definite Xander-ness. He wasn't very thrilled with the only thing which made any bit of sense. Namely, that the Boca del Infierno itself had gleefully decided to award its most favorite butt-monkey the booby prize of the year.

Yeah, it all came down to the Sunnydale Hellmouth. Just after the Spanish-American War, that vast source of mystical power had been seized by a human villain, who then for the next century patiently carried out his own plots to stay in power even as he worked to achieve his ultimate goal, all involving boosting the strength from that supernatural connection to other, more malevolent levels of reality. Meanwhile, the intangible energies from this expanded dimensional nexus had steadily pervaded the unknowing population of a small California city. Including in time, one Alexander LaVelle Harris, who somehow managed during the next twenty or so years to avoid ever being a demon's snack, and also to survive more dangerous magical events than existed in any wizard's worst nightmares.

Unfortunately, that unique existence had wound up with Xander being basically chock full o' the mojo stuff, even if he couldn't ever actually use it. Which was not at all a good thing to be here and now, in a dimension almost wholly devoid of magic.

The best he could describe it, being here, was that everything felt utterly… _flat._ The odd thing was, Xander had experienced the faintest possible sense of this a few times before, whenever he'd left Sunnydale. Once past the city limits sign (when this wasn't being replaced after the previous 'Welcome to Sunnydale' marker had been run over), there'd been the teensiest bit of a letdown which he'd hardly noticed. The same went for arriving back in Sunnydale, in that he'd come alive in the identical infinitesimal measure.

Of course, after the eventual destruction of this demon-infestation location and the establishment of the New Council, that peculiar feeling of miniscule loss became permanent for Xander. Not even his appointment into being the Head of the Cleveland Slayers House, whose Slayer and Watcher residents now kept a wary eye on that Ohio city's new Hellmouth, caused him to again experience there what he'd been barely aware of while living in his former birthplace.

Xander always chalked it up to Sunnydale Syndrome, the collective magical influence back then on most of the people in his hometown to make them determinedly ignore any strangeness taking place in their vicinity. However, while chatting with Willow during one of her visits from their Scotland headquarters, their conversation had soon led to him telling this witch of his slight feeling of inward dissatisfaction, all too different from what he remembered in living at where Faith still kept referring to as Sunnyhell.

* * *

Several years ago:

Willow Rosenberg gave a startled chuckle, to next eye him curiously. She mused, "I didn't know you could sense mana levels, Xan. How come you never told me this before?"

It was Xander's turn to stare with bafflement at his bestest bud, just before asking her in honest confusion, "What's the stuff Moses and the rest of your ancestors ate in the desert while wandering around in there for forty years have to do with what we were just talking about, Wils?"

"Not m-a-n-n-a, with two 'ens'," Willow smilingly spelled out, before going on. "I guest you really were paying attention in synagogue the times you came along with us when we were kids and heard the stories from the second book of the Torah, about the Israelites. No, I meant m-a-n-a with only _one_ 'en', which is just another word for magic. Anyway, I think it all goes back to how powerful the Sunnydale Hellmouth was after all the Mayor's meddling with it. That made it a very high mana place, which was another reason why so many demons hung around there. They liked the feel of it. Though, most humans weren't directly affected by the mana besides Sunnydale Syndrome in their cases. You weren't either, except when you took trips out of town, and then moved from our former home's very high mana level to the rest of the world's high mana level."

Xander scratched his head. The man cautiously mentioned what he thought she meant, "It's like, I dunno, driving down a street and hitting a bump there where it changed from a town's jurisdiction into being a bit lower on the county or state's side of the road?"

"Very good," Willow complimented Xander, while also giving her friend an approving look for coming up with this appropriate analogy. She added, "I don't think what's been bothering you will last much longer. Now that you're living full time in the usual mana level for this dimension, it'll start to seem normal."

"I keep expecting the Hellmouth here to make me feel like back in California," Xander pointed out. "How come it's not?"

"Like I said, the Boca del Infierno was special," reminded Willow. The witch shrugged, "It doesn't mean Cleveland's Hellmouth isn't dangerous. Just that the one we barely survived growing up was ridiculously overpowered in comparison. Anyway, from what you told me, you hardly felt the difference leaving or returning to Sunnydale. It'll probably never happen to you again, because there aren't all that many very high mana places around for you to visit."

Thinking this over for a few moments, Xander soon came out with, "What about the other way?"

"Huh?" Willow frowned at Xander.

This one-eyed man enthusiastically nodded. "You said very high mana, and then high mana. What's the next setting, medium or low mana? Would I feel that, too?"

Willow's mouth fell open in her shock. She eventually said in a somewhat hollow tone, "I…have absolutely no idea."

At Xander's concerned glance, the young woman managed to get hold of herself. Willow rubbed several times at her forehead with one hand before bringing this down to send a very sardonic glower at her puzzled pal. She sighed, "You don't know what you just asked, did you? But then, you've always been great at giving people mental hiccups!"

Receiving a proud smirk from Xander showing his pleasure despite clearly having no idea why Wils was so annoyed at him, this witch in return started grumpily lecturing her companion. "Look, let me put it this way: High mana is this dimension's default setting. It's why I - and every other magical person in the whole world - can use magic anywhere. We all have different skills, abilities, and degrees of power, but at least we know there'll be something for us to use. Suggesting to any magic caster we might encounter a patch of medium, or Gaia help us, _low_ mana is like someone telling you any second now, they'll grab a patch of air with their bare fingers in front of your face, and then yank it away to leave you breathing a perfect vacuum!"

With those last words, Willow was actually spluttering in righteous indignation, leading Xander to lift and wave his hands in fervent apology. He said defensively, "Okay, okay, forget I ever mentioned it-"

"Too late," the witch muttered under her breath.

Giving his friend a genuinely dirty look, Xander gritted his teeth and soldiered on, "-although, now that I brought it up-"

"Yes, thanks so much."

"-aarrgghh! Will you let me finish? Listen, I didn't mean to do what Giles said once, leaving your knickers in a twist, but can't you overlook me putting a foot in my mouth? Just give me a straight answer, please. If only because since I said it in the first place, I've basically doomed myself to someday winding up in a low mana neighborhood!"

Hearing this, Willow's irritated expression abruptly shifted into actual alarm. She gazed with real concern at Xander looking appealingly back at her, only for Willow's shoulders to slump in unease. Finally, the witch admitted, "I'm sorry, Xan, but nothing really helpful comes to mind. The only advice I can think of right now, if that ever _does_ happen, is to get out of there as fast as possible. Because, judging by how your life's worked out so far when it comes to you and magic, it's almost guaranteed to turn into major weirdness."

* * *

From where he was still lying in his restrained position on the innerworldly ground during his mindscape's ruminations, Xander irritably spoke to nobody in particular. "Don't you ever get tired of being right so much, Wils? It took about, oh, maybe half a sec after getting dumped by that portal into this asshole low mana place for things to go seriously wrong. I guess my first clue I'd just fallen into deep shit was when my brain got chomped by the big, sharp teeth of someone who damned well needs to try a few gallons of mouthwash!"

Xander then rolled his remaining eye upwards and back to glare right into the snarling, bestial countenance of Hyena looking down at him while squatting upon her haunches directly behind his head.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm thinking a nice salad, just to start everything off. Lots of green, leafy, bunny food. Then, it'll be at least five or six ears of roasted corn on the cob, with plenty of mashed potatoes piled high on another plate and swimming in melted butter. Warm sourdough rolls toasty fresh from the oven, natch. All of it washed down with a gallon of icy cold milk. And for dessert, a manhole-size slab of warmed-up apple pie topped with a dozen scoops of vanilla ice cream on the brown sugar crust. Yummy!"

Carefully gauging any potential reaction, Xander moved in for the kill.

"Oh, yeah, I've just remembered something. Throughout my very first meal to celebrate escaping from here, there ain't gonna be a single piece of… _meat!_ Nope, good ol' Xander Harris, the guy who had his body taken over by you and the others, but mostly _you,_ is declaring here and now his devout conversion to vegetarianism!"

Hmmm, did those glowing yellow eyes flicker just a bit?

Beginning to really get into it, Xander continued taunting Hyena: "No hamburgers, hot dogs, or steaks! No bacon, no sausage, and above all, NO PORK CHOPS!"

This was even more fun than singing "This is the song that never ends" a solid week straight. So far, that'd been the highlight of the stalemate between Xander and Hyena, but this current recitation of what the human was threatening to give up in retaliation for that Primal possession's actions was definitely sweet revenge. Still kinda petty, but sweet, nevertheless.

The standoff between the two beings had promptly started a half-year ago, when Xander fell out of the portal created by the latest would-be Big Bad trying to take over the Cleveland Hellmouth. Just a couple seconds before this, the entire situation seemed to be well in hand. He'd been directing the House Strike Team in cleaning up the usual gang of demonic minions and this idiotic bunch's equally clueless master at their hideout in a foreclosed office building. (It had to be admitted, this was a nice change from the usual decaying warehouse where those supernatural schmucks normally plotted their conquests of the world.)

Anyway, the head demon honcho had been just about to be messily carved into numerous bloody chunks by a multitude of Slayer weapons closing in on that hapless foe. In reaction, Mr. Moron desperately tried to cast a last-second transportation spell to escape certain death. Which hadn't gone all that well for him.

Hey, Xander's people were damned good at their jobs, just as he'd trained them to be. The demon sorcerer's head was expertly hewn off its shoulders by the smooth sword stroke of the nearest Slayer. From what the New Council leader remembered, that'd been the very fine work of a newbie, one Jessica Barnes. If and when Xander ever got back to Cleveland, this young warrior woman was still going to get an "atta girl!" from him, regardless of what'd then happened. After all, it wasn't like Jessica was really to blame for not moving quite fast enough, so that the demon was halfway through the very last syllable of its getaway spell right before becoming decapitated.

Thinking back, Xander couldn't be certain, but he was still convinced that Evil Overdork actually finished the spell in mid-air despite being in two pieces sailing off in opposite directions. This naturally made the just-cast spell fail to function precisely as intended. Except, of course, for causing the maximum possible trouble for its unintended target. Or so thought the man in his mindscape, given how _he'd_ ended getting gobbled up by a blast of white mystical energy inexorably heading in his direction, far too fast for him to dodge or be yanked away by the nearest Slayer.

The really sad part was that'd been only the start of his problems.

Unlike after the Sunnydale zoo visit and when Hyena had first come out to play at the high school, Xander was an utterly helpless bystander in the whole ongoing debacle at his new location. There'd been no chance this time for him to fight off Hyena's possession, not when she so firmly clamped onto his higher consciousness. Making it even more difficult, his other mental guests helped to psychically hold down Xander by their clustering around the magic he'd absorbed at his home dimension.

In the six months since he'd appeared in this low mana world, Xander occasionally wondered why none of the other possessions ever dominated his body instead of Hyena. Either by jumping with both feet into his mind right at the onset to beat out the Primal, or to take over from her in the meantime. All he could come up with was the likely explanation she'd been the earliest and most powerful possession, which let her be the Alpha against Sineya, Soldier-Boy, and Swimmer. In which case, the rest of the unwelcome trespassers in his head were sensibly steering clear of Hyena while waiting for their own chance.

Or, simply because she'd always been one hell of a stubborn, unmanageable, pain-in-the-ass bitch.

Xander's irascible belief in the above was comprehensively borne out by the following unpleasant course of events after appearing in the middle of a farmer's field: tearing off his confining clothes, searching for the nearest food at hand, munching away in yet another excruciating repeat of the Herbert incident, and after being disturbed by some yahoo with a gun, getting sent down for the count by a blast of buckshot.

It next got even _worse,_ incredible as that might seem. Hyena was decidedly not happy about waking up inside a police station while wearing handcuffs and more shackles. She made her feelings abundantly clear by trying to tear off her restraints, and when this failed, in still going after every human within range. The only thing which prevented a bloody massacre at that point was a shocking discovery for both entities in one body. In this low mana dimension, Hyena no longer fully enjoyed the Primal magic which made her a match for a Slayer's fighting prowess. Nor did she have the capacity to shrug off the level of physical punishment her host took when the pummeled, furious cops subdued their crazy prisoner, and then played a little catch-up against him with their billy clubs.

Hyena thoroughly sulked right through everything which came after. She didn't allow Xander the least bit of freedom in all the doctors' visits. Not even when they declared him an untreatable mental patient needing to be committed at the nearest insane asylum. Her hatred of humanity grew even more vicious at basically being tossed into a cage and left there to rot for months.

In the meantime, Xander had the futile task of persuading Hyena to just _quit_ already, dammit! It wasn't like he wanted to be imprisoned here the rest of his life, either. Unfortunately, the Primal beast obstinately refused to let go of her control of his body, save for the minor gains in his speech which Xander had managed over time to allow him being able to utter a few hoarse words in the confines of his cell. Not that he'd ever bothered to talk to those fucking orderlies. What was he going to tell them, anyway? "Hey, fellas, I'm not really crazy, okay? I've just got a head stuffed full of other people, including one really nasty critter who wants to rip out each and every one of your throats with her teeth…"

Yeah, right. An increasingly exasperated man remained stuck in the whole stupid mindscape situation. Soon enough, the restrained New Council member in there started verbally goading a mystical creature through anything his truly creative imagination came up with to yell at her.

There were a number of good reasons for Xander thoroughly venting his bad temper at the animal possession while she remained close at hand in their mental abode. For one, it was well worth trying to anger or irritate in turn Hyena on the off chance she'd get pissed enough to make some sort of mistake and enable him to get back in the driver's seat of his consciousness. This obviously hadn't happened yet, but this was still worth a try. Another reason was that it gave Xander the vastly appreciated opportunity to blow off a lot of steam whenever he just couldn't take it any more. Finally, it helped to pass the time.

The last was decidedly important, given it'd been a whole half of a year spent here so far, from what he could estimate. All without any sign of rescue from his friends.

Xander had never thought it'd be so long. Not when Wils and the rest back home would damned well be looking for him, using every bit of their mojo and other supernatural abilities to find out just where that crummy portal had transported a certain one-eyed man. This consideration had gotten him through the first part of his exile, until a stray notion then abruptly plunged Xander into the depths of despair. To be exact, what if they thought he was dead?

The uncomfortable similarities between him getting yanked out of his home dimension and Buffy's own fatal swan dive through Glory's portal were close enough to genuinely worry Xander. Hell, for all he knew, the gang might be thinking that blast of magic energy had destroyed his entire body. Or, if he wanted to take it even further, a copy of his corpse could have been left behind back there in the office building. Per the New Council's guidelines, these remains would've been immediately cremated by his grieving loved ones. In either case, there'd emphatically be no resurrection attempts of any kind for him. Not with all the anguish the last one had caused among the Scoobies.

The man sent to a forbidding insane asylum had nothing else to do in his cell but to extensively brood about this, all while ignoring his mental occupants continuing to detain him in the inner mindscape. He'd done it so thoroughly that in due time, Xander went into the deepest blue funk of his life. However long this lasted he was never sure, but after somehow emerging from that total hopelessness, Xander again resignedly surveyed the quartet of possessions still in their original places around his restrained spirit. At that point, something suddenly occurred to him which he hadn't thought of before, either: why hadn't Hyena tried to completely take over while he'd been feeling so sorry for himself?

In his cell for the first week of his stay there, Xander contemplated that for a while. He tried to remember all the information about possessions he'd surreptitiously learned in private from Giles' books at the Sunnydale High library after surviving his original encounter with Hyena. Back then, the teenager wasn't tempted to discuss it with that Englishman and the girls. The horrified realization of almost doing the unforgivable to Buffy prevented this, especially since she'd also never fully revealed the particulars of their savage fight to the others. Later on, when Soldier-Boy, Swimmer, and Sineya were added to his mental tab, Xander had even more incentive to discreetly find out all he could as to why his awareness was still his own, despite all he'd gone through in his hometown.

In the mindscape then, Xander thoughtfully glanced down at his magically glowing representation of a Sunnydale native's body. This was the first time ever he'd actually managed to confirm the theory a high school student had come up with back when there'd been an intact California Hellmouth instead of just a big hole in the ground years later.

Having been born and next living all his life over the Boca del Infierno, this achievement produced in due course some rather weird effects upon Xander's basic nature. An example of this was that any spell or enchantment cast upon him, either willingly or under loud protest, had a persistent tendency to result in magic going remarkably wonky for Xander. Not that this was all bad. Among other things, it'd probably been the reason he survived Darth Willow when she'd lashed out at him with her maximum mojo on Kingman's Bluff.

Xander easily called up from his recollections the exact page he'd found in one of Giles' dustiest tomes almost a decade ago. There, some mage centuries before put down the possibility that a soul could be so imbued with magical energy as to give it some innate protection from immaterial supernatural dominances. This protection would only, to all intents and purposes, shelter the soul and keep it intact unless that specific person desired otherwise. In the meantime, while the possession couldn't absorb the soul until then, this mental intruder did have the power to influence or even fully control the body and mind of its human host.

That was as far as it'd gone in the volume from G-man's treasured collection in which Xander had sneaked a quick peek sometime between the usual Sunnydale apocalypses. Even though he'd tried to find out more, nothing else ever turned up to suggest this had indeed happened to the man banished into a low mana dimension. At least, until now.

It just had to be yet another oddball occurrence for a long-suffering Mr. Harris. Apparently he'd in fact remained nobody other than himself because his fundamental gonzo magical nature had always fended off the brain invaders. _But,_ since they were all stuck here together in this place without any more mojo than him close at hand, the Fearsome Foursome wouldn't let go of their sole sustenance.

Great, a real Mexican standoff. Was it any wonder Xander had spent most of the last six months after figuring this out in either lipping off to Hyena or going through his picture-perfect memories?

Lying on his back while glowering up at the implacable predator stare of the Primal beast just an arm's length away maintaining her unwavering gaze, Xander halfheartedly shrugged his shoulders against the imaginary ground of the mindscape. As a matter of fact, that little trick he'd learned in this damn place probably kept him from going actually bonkers sooner or later.

Whenever he wanted, the man could withdraw into any personal memory he choose. There, he'd live his life once more in real time and experience everything again with full sensory impact. Xander had taken full advantage of this as soon as he'd felt sure those four pains in the cranium couldn't lay a finger or claw or suchlike on him. Let 'em stand there until hell froze over if they wanted. _He_ got to be with Jesse and Willow when they were kids, or maybe another trip to the supply closet with Cordy, or how about watching sophomore Buffy do her Slaying duty in those really tight pants at one of Sunnydale's graveyards after midnight? Yeah, that sounded good. It never got stale, the times when it was just 'see vampire, stake vampire, celebrate at the Bronze-'

Without any warning at all, Hyena launched herself in a soaring jump forward. The leaping animal went completely over Xander's supine body to land on all fours next to Sineya, who snapped her own head around to stare in clear astonishment at the African beast passing by. Ignoring both the Slayer and the rest of the mindscape's inhabitants she was rapidly leaving behind, the Primal creature sprinted at her fastest speed directly away from their small group.


	5. Chapter 5

Xander found himself on his feet without remembering how he got there. Just as several others there also moved instantly elsewhere in less than the blink of an eye. Bewilderedly gazing off in the distance ahead of the mindscape at where four figures about a dozen yards away were now showing their backs to him, the man glanced down and he did a massive double-take.

For the first time in six months or so, Xander was free to move as he pleased. The quartet of possessions who'd come along with him to this low mana dimension were no longer restraining his spirit form. Which in turn meant he'd probably have no trouble whatsoever waking up and getting around in his asylum cell.

Well, apart from the whole confining straitjacket and shackles he still had on him out in the real world, that is.

Setting aside this admittedly significant problem for the moment, Xander warily headed towards the several beings standing in a line alongside each other. These entities were still paying no attention to their human host coming up from behind them. Xander was pretty much at a loss. Even if this was some sort of clever ploy to further ensnare or otherwise trick him, he had absolutely no idea why the hell those nuisances would try something specifically like this in the first place. He needed more info, and given exactly whom he was dealing with, this was going to be kind of difficult. Fortunately, the particular possession he wanted to confront was at the far left of their short line, which made things a wee bit easier.

At last arriving at the opposite side of Soldier-Boy well away from the other possessions, Xander began to open his mouth in a hopeful demand from that guy for an answer of any kind. However, instead of actually saying something, Xander otherwise gawked in increasing befuddlement at what this military guy was doing right now. Somehow, Soldier-Boy was holding up to his featureless face a pair of surplus U.S. Army binoculars. God only knew where these had come from, and that deity wasn't telling. The end result of a wild Halloween night years ago in Sunnydale was presently peering through the binoculars despite having no eyes at all. Yet despite this, Soldier-Boy was definitely maintaining a zealous scrutiny of…?

Following the binoculars' sightline, Xander observed nothing there anywhere in the vicinity which seemed to be expressly catching Soldier-Boy's avid interest. Ahead, the mindscape faded into misty dimness indicating where this little part of his subconscious came to an end. Feeling even more lost, Xander scratched his head in real puzzlement. He then leaned to his left to look past Soldier-Boy at the remaining possessions in their line. Yet even more confusion came for Xander, who found them acting just as oddly in the same manner as per their own natures, all while completely ignoring the New Council exile.

At the far right of the line, a stiff-legged Hyena was intently staring with her glowing yellow eyes at something invisible in front of this beast. Next to the Primal, Sineya stood stock-still and watched through her dangling dreadlocks in equally absorbed attention towards nothing at all, either. Even Swimmer between Sineya and Soldier-Boy shared the utter concentration of this sea monster's associates.

Xander straightened back up to thoughtfully regard Soldier-Boy still continuing his own unbroken inspection. While not very happy in the slightest with any of those possessions, the former Sunnydale resident disliked this Halloween invader the least. After all, Soldier-Boy (or SB for short) had genuinely helped out the Scoobies back when Ethan Rayne had his fun with that crummy Chaos magic. Later on, there'd also been the eventful episode with a stolen rocket launcher and the Judge, in which SB had definitely lent an imaginary hand in making things work out okay. Xander had to admit that over the years, a few more less-important incidents also involved advice from that possession. So, the man was prepared to cut this specific magical creation a little slack. Unlike the others, that was for damn sure.

He categorically wasn't going anywhere near Hyena. Sineya made him almost as nervous, and Swimmer was just too unsettling in being a walking reminder of how close he'd come to transforming into a cheap B-movie fish monster. All of this resulted in Xander cautiously asking a member of the armed forces, "Hey, dude, what's so fascinating out there?"

Lowering his binoculars, Soldier-Boy turned his head to present a blank visage directly towards Xander's own startled countenance. These two persons stayed like this long enough for Xander to start feeling a lot creeped out at the other's evident examination. SB next did something really strange. With a smooth extension of his arm away from his body, the military possession held out the binoculars by one large, masculine hand in a clear offer for Xander to take them.

The man gaped in sheer astonishment, until without actually thinking about it, he indeed accepted the long-range vision devices. Looking down in real awe at what was tangibly clutched in his fingers, Xander also dazedly noted his gift painted in Army-green colors possessed the normal bulk and weight of authentic 1960's-era binoculars.

Catching a flicker of motion with his remaining eye, Xander glanced up to see Soldier-Boy rejoining the others in their obsessive study of whatever was capturing the mystical quartet's concentration. Bemusedly squeezing the binoculars one more time to assure himself of their reality, Xander eventually shrugged in reluctant acknowledgement over what he obviously had to carry out now. Bringing up the binoculars to eye level, even though he naturally couldn't use the left lens, Xander nevertheless looked through these-

Two seconds later, an enraged "THAT SONOFABITCH!" was roared at the top of Xander's lungs to resound throughout the mindscape.

Letting his now-empty hands fall to clench in tight fists, Xander was too mad to think about how the binoculars had abruptly disappeared from his grasp. Nor was he particularly inclined to worry all that much about the four possessions at this point who'd just as quickly and mysteriously moved into a semicircle in front of him, each of them closely watching the furious man.

Instead, Xander snarled at the others, " _My_ body, _my_ rules, all the time! You totally behave, or whatever happens afterwards, I'll let Wils use her mojo to dig you out of my brain with a blunt spoon! Got that, everyone?"

Soldier-Boy was the first to move. From his position in the semicircle, this fatigues-wearing possession marched briskly forward to halt an arm's-length from where Xander was standing. Coming to attention with a snappy salute following this, the soldier held that respectful posture, until Xander nodded in permission and extended his hand. Dropping his own hand from his forehead, Soldier-Boy reached out to exchange a firm shake with the human. In the very middle of this, the possession completely vanished from the mindscape.

Xander necessarily spent a few moments to recover from this. In the meantime, Swimmer shambled forward to wait patiently at the same distance from the human by which a now-merged Soldier-Boy had maintained. Wincingly rubbing at his head to thoroughly settle down whom was presently in there, Xander blinked at the scaled nightmare who'd evidently made its own decision. Sighing out loud, Xander still held out his hand again, to have it immediately taken in a rough grip which lasted for only a second until both it and Swimmer were gone.

Drawing in a deep breath, Xander uneasily observed Sineya slink in her bare feet into his general direction. She got closer than the previous possessions, right into his face so that the pair were near enough to touch their foreheads with the other if either leaned forward. However, what Sineya did was to lift both her hands up to just under Xander's nose, and work her fingers with their long, sharp nails as if she was about to-

The man's sole eye promptly watered, and he just managed to supress the very serious urge to cross his legs. Apparently, the gesture for performing a male castration was a _lot_ older than anybody might've guessed.

Satisfied that her message was understood, Sineya then imperiously seized Xander's own hands. In the shortness of their contact before the First Slayer departed, an astonished man felt in his grasp not the hardened skin as tough as leather he'd been really expecting, but rather a soft, feminine touch.

His thoughts whirling over what'd just happened, Xander absently looked down for what should be before him, only to find there an empty space. Snapping his gaze up, Xander glared at where Hyena hadn't moved in her position. On the contrary, the African animal sitting on her haunches was curling her lips to show every single pointed tooth in a matching evil sneer at the human.

Striding forward, Xander fearlessly came to a stop well within biting range. He barked downwards at where Hyena was estimating what to gnaw on first, "You want _out_ of this cage, you damn well better pay for it! This is your only chance, you flea-bitten mutt! I'm fucking fed up with your attitude! Either it changes, or you can stay behind for all I care! Make up your mind, NOW!"

After shouting that last word, Xander and Hyena locked their smoldering gazes in a silent battle for dominance. It went on and on, even when one of the duelists began to weaken in their mutual stare. Instead of offended hatred, a flash of rapid calculation flickered over the features of a specific combatant, as if they were considering bargaining for terms to end their battle.

This hope by Hyena was dashed by Xander's steely tone, "Don't even think about it, Fangpuss. It's never going to happen again, you acting up like when Buffy fought us. Stick one paw over the line in our deal of me being in full control, and it'll be tofu for life. Yes or no?"

A vastly resentful growl shivered the entire mindscape. Nevertheless, Hyena finally lowered her head in submission. It was the merest fraction of movement, but she'd unquestionably conceded Xander was the Alpha. For now, at least.

Reaching out with his hand, Xander confidently laid this atop Hyena's broad, furry skull. Right after, both he and the Primal vanished from the mindscape.


	6. Chapter 6

Reinforced canvas ripped like ultra-cheap toilet paper as the straitjacket was completely torn off from the inside by violent fingers smoothly wrenching away, to then have the resulting shreds of fabric be tossed over a shoulder without a second thought. Flexing his arms at last able to move freely for the first time in months, Xander crouched to grip in both hands the steel chain connecting his ankle shackles. Another effortless tug shattered the link in the middle of the chain. Dropping the ends of the chain which were now dangling in two separate pieces from the metal bands encircling his lower legs, Xander straightened up in the reeking cell, bouncing lightly on his feet. A faint tinkling reached his ears, causing him to look down. The ends of the drooping chains were now rattling against the stained concrete floor, in the manner of some odd sort of loose shoelaces trailing along after him.

Xander impatiently shrugged at the trivial sight. He didn't have time to finish breaking or prying off the shackes, so they and their remnants of chains would just have to be left alone until later. This minor hindrance wouldn't impede all that much what he had to do otherwise right now, anyway.

Stepping forward to the locked and bolted door of the cell, Xander lifted his clenched fists up to head level. Uttering a savage "YAH!", he then smashed down the bottoms of his fists in a double hammer-strike against the front of the shut door with all his newfound strength.

The door didn't budge. There wasn't a chance for Xander to be disappointed about this, since something else happened which worked out just as nicely for him. To be precise, the entire door frame blew off, propelled by that incredible wallop out into the corridor in an explosion of concrete dust and debris. Rebounding from the opposite corridor wall, the frame and its still-attached door with two massive dents in this panel then clattered to the floor.

Waving away from his thickly-bearded face the dust which had started drifting into his cell, a nude Xander gawked at the massive hole now displaying itself where his door had been there a moment before. He next promptly sent a very nasty mental message to a certain African beast inside his head, irascibly mentioning to Hyena that if she'd simply bothered to cooperate earlier, they could've been out of here a hell of a lot sooner.

An immaterial grumpy growl came back just as quickly. The Primal sulking in her thorough snit haughtily ignored her host's rebuke to instead demand Xander start moving, since their whole urgent reason for joining together still applied. At that, the other possessions chimed in with their own speedy agreement.

Xander rolled his remaining eye in real exasperation while muttering under his breath, "Yeah, leave it to me to do all the hard work. I'm going, I'm going, already!"

A swift leap forward easily caried Xander several yards out of the cell in a single bound. He landed by the lower end of the wrecked door frame. The man still took a few seconds to glory in his freedom at last. In this sheer gladness was also the New Council troubleshooter's reluctant acknowledgement of how the abilities donated by the various possessions - their mystical strength, stamina, and healing powers - had finally come together to liberate Xander Harris and allow him to also complete a crucial task.

Just when Xander was in the middle of feeling thankful the healing mojo had apparently been working all the time besides without him noticing, otherwise he'd probably be crippled or worse by six months' close confinement, the possessions one and all desperately contacted their host. Staggering under the psychic uproar of four very different entities simultaneously doing something like shouting at the tops of their lungs straight into his ear, Xander further reeled in the corridor at the sudden horrible news he'd just learned from his cranium's guests.

His basic innate magic-ness, the consequence of coming from a high mana dimension and in addition being the former native of a very high mana Hellmouth, was starting to rapidly drain away in a place without any kind of magic whatsoever. Worse of all, this inner depletion was taking the possessions along with it.

Ironically, both the Hyena's seizure of Xander's body and the clustering by Soldier-Boy, Swimmer, and Sineya around his magical core prevented this from occurring right after first appearing in this dimension. Xander's personal supply of the mystical stuff had instead been hoarded as if a fire was covered or banked to save a precious spark for the future, limited throughout his imprisonment to unknowingly keep his body somewhat fit. The possessions themselves had never considered the danger either, merely attempting to maintain their own existence via extracting the man's supernatural energies for themselves.

With his merger of the possessions, an unaware Xander had basically removed their protection. He was now burning bright all of his magic, and at the same time attempting to warm up an entire low mana world greedily absorbing every bit of the only thing capable of helping him to escape and possibly more.

Genuinely terrified, Xander whirled around and the naked man sprinted with incredible speed to the end of the asylum corridor. There, he skidded to a stop in his bare feet in front of a sliding door built of thick vertical and horizontal bars. This was one of the main obstructions throughout the building designed to prevent any kind of mass breakout or riot overrunning the whole facility. Ignoring the yelling orderly rising from his chair in the enclosed zone between two identical security doors on both sides of this small room, Xander grabbed at the bars an arm's length away, and he gave an experimental yank to the steel poles.

The low groan coming from the metal, plus the distinct bending of these bars he then saw instantly shut up the vociferous orderly. Frantically trying to convince himself he hadn't really seen the utterly impossible, the hospital attendant turned as pale as his white shirt and pants, backing up all the while until his body slammed unnoticed against the opposite wall. He remained there, pressing his sweat-dampened shoulders against this as if trying to vanish through the partition and continued to disbelievingly watch.

Xander still wasn't paying any attention to the other awestruck man. Not when Soldier-Boy had just told his host how to open the door rather than waste time tearing it completely off. Bracing his feet, Xander heaved sideways on the door. Along the left vertical edges of this where the lock was, the inner latch snapped like a twig. With a grating screech, the door slid along its overhead track to slam fully open.

Five seconds later, the same thing was done to the second door. Xander again sprinted down the next corridor to his destination, carrying with him the sound of his still-fastened chains cracking against the floor at every loping stride. Behind him, an untouched orderly gaped after the escaping inmate until he suddenly remembered his specific instructions for something like this (however it'd happened, which was another story entirely). Lunging forward to the far wall, the orderly mashed his thumb against the button atop an electrical switch.

Throughout the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane, alarm bells began to ring at their loudest volume.


	7. Chapter 7

The noise of the emergency alarm going off was lost among the loud screams and yells of a desperate battle happening in the asylum kitchen area where four young women had rushed in there to come to the aid of one of their number, who'd just failed in her surreptitious mission.

Roaring with fury about catching the cunt he'd brought into his workplace for a quickie who'd instead taken this opportunity to try stealing a sharp carving knife from his belt, the fat cook enraged beyond reason had Sweet Pea in a headlock with one beefy arm and was bringing nearer to that girl's face the knife held in the cook's other hand. Only Amber and Blondie frantically attempting to pull back with both arms the cook's wrist were slowing down at all the knife's momentum, but even with their full weight and effort, the needle tip was still approaching Sweet Pea's terrified eyes. Seeing this, Rocket down on her knees on the kitchen floor while clasping one of the cook's legs and trying to tip him over strove even harder in this to save her sister, all to no avail.

The last of their small group, Babydoll was sitting dazed in a kitchen corner, thrown off a moment ago after she'd leapt onto the cook's back and in the course of this getting her head knocked hard against a wall. Holding her aching skull, Babydoll was abruptly jerked out of her stupor at the wooden kitchen door to the outside hallway corridor being entirely demolished by someone smashing through it, with accompanying splinters flying everywhere.

Even the struggling people in the middle of the kitchen began to react to that, but far too slowly. In a blur, the unexpected stranger dove into the fight, sending each of the girls staggering off into all directions when the cook was seized with incredible strength. That included Sweet Pea being suddenly freed of his strangling grip by the cook. Three hundred pounds of flabby flesh were then effortlessly lifted over the stranger's head until the cook was savagely slammed onto his back against the top of the nearest metal kitchen table.

Just barely managing not to collapse under the force of that tremendous blow, the table then shuddered due to yet another wallop. When the cook hit the table, the shock of this naturally made him let go of his knife. Flipped up high towards the kitchen ceiling, the loose knife was immediately seized by its hilt in mid-air by the stranger. In a smooth downwards curve, point first, the knife was thrust entirely through the cook's splayed-out right hand and also the metal tabletop under it.

The resulting shriek of agony emitted by the cook was cut off even as this started, with a casual backhand slap made by the stranger using a bare fraction of the astonishing strength he'd already shown before. That slap still rendered in a spray of blood and spittle the cook unconscious, along with shattering his jaw and close to a half-dozen teeth plus pulping both lips and his nose.

Glaring at the limp form of the cook bleeding from both his mouth and transfixed hand with the knife still sticking out from there, the stranger seemed to be considering inflicting even more punishment against someone who'd just tried to viciously slash a girl-

Um. About that…

The stranger slowly turned around and stared with one eye at the five young women also in the kitchen who were regarding him with terrified incredulity. Well, to be honest, they had very good reasons for this reaction, what with that brutal guy's empty crater where his left eye should've been, the lank, filthy hair and beard which hadn't been cut for months, two sets of ankle shackles with their trailing chains, and a massively-scarred body displaying to the world every square inch of his otherwise bare skin.

Yes, their presumed rescuer was completely naked. Which was not reassuring Babydoll, Blondie, Sweet Pea, Rocket, and Amber at _all._

Things got even weirder when the guy snapped his head up to scowl at the alarm bells still continuing to ring at maximum volume, which the girls finally paid attention to in turn. Appalled at how their recent ruckus might've grabbed the authorities' notice, these ladies gazed at each other in mutual confused panic, not sure what to do next. The most sensible part of their bleak prospects would be to sneak back into their rooms and pray not to get caught during this, but that'd only work until the cook woke up and managed to convey how he got beaten up by the asylum's most dangerous lunatic with the girls as witnesses. They'd be blamed too, you could be sure of that.

Just when Babydoll and the others realized the utter hopelessness of their situation, something particularly bizarre occurred. The stranger spoke.

In a rough voice sounding like he hadn't talked for years, he growled, stretching out the words, "Coooommme! Rrrruuuunnnn! Ssssscrrrraaaammm!"

None of them moved, only gawking at the naked man. Despite themselves, a few of the girls' attention drifted to one specific point of his unclad body, which was really, really… Uh, just…really.

Rolling his sole remaining eye in evident exasperation, the guy next bellowed, "FFFFRRRREEEEE!"

After saying that, the guy dashed to the new opening where the kitchen door to the corridor had been until he'd run through it a couple minutes ago without bothering to open this first. Pausing there, the guy glanced around at them all and irritably beckoned the girls to follow after him.

Without thinking about it, Rocket, Amber, Sweet Pea, and Blondie all looked at Babydoll. Unable to come up with anything better, she shrugged and shouted over the alarm bells still ringing, "Let's go! This might be our only chance! At least, it's got to be better than letting them round us up without even trying to make a break for it!"

Whirling around, the guy darted out into the corridor, followed at once by the girls in a line directly after him. On second thought, they were staying a few steps behind, simply because he _stank._

The disgusting odor of dried sweat, piss, and shit coming from him became all too evident when a few seconds later the guy skidded to a stop just before a cross corridor, throwing out both arms horizontally to make the girls also halt. Almost bumping with him in a group collision, Babydoll, Blondie, Sweet Pea, Rocket, and Amber winced at the smells wafting their way, but they managed to not actually touch him.

Opening their mouths to yell questions at him over why he'd stopped, the girls simultaneously changed their minds at seeing the very evil grin the guy was now doing. Showing every stained tooth in an definitely maniacal expression that made the girls all take a cautious step back, the guy cocked his head as if listening to something.

At that point, the pair of four orderlies lying in wait on either side of the cross corridor where they'd been out of sight now sprang their ambush. Nearly a ton of burly muscle in the form of eight men wielding nightsticks, axe handles, and other clubs thundered forward and around the cross corridor corners, catching in between them just one victim…who strangely looked _happy_ to see them.

Springing forwards in turn at the advancing mob with his arms wide open and ready fingers curled to pummel, Xander mentally reminded both himself and his possessions to tone down some of what he was gonna do to all those bastards who'd abused him for the last six months. No killing, actual mutilations, or permanent crippling injuries.

That said, it left things free for Xander to then introduce to his newest opponents an entire universe of pain.

Cringing in their hallway while putting their hands over their ears, five young women watched with wide eyes how a naked man punched away with casual swings of his fists that still lifted off their feet the whole group of much-bigger orderlies and sent them crashing into the corridor walls, the floor, and in one impressive case, the ceiling. It took far less time to accomplish than to put it down in words.

Not even breathing hard, Xander stood at the intersection of the corridors surrounded by the bodies of his defeated foes and savoring the moans and whimpers of those who weren't already out cold. Mind you, those who'd escaped into dreamland weren't going to have all their broken bones and missing teeth be automatically healed when they woke up. Glancing down the hallway at where the girls he'd rescued were staring in awe at him, Xander waved at them in another 'come on' gesture. They weren't safe yet.

Watching the obedient girls gingerly pick their way among the bodies (the still-conscious ones finally got a rush of sense to their battered heads and pretended to be napping), Xander turned and began thinking how to get out of here-

" _YOU!_ " was abruptly shrieked in a female voice.

Spinning back around, Xander and the other girls gawked at where Blondie had just viciously kicked one of the unconscious orderlies in the face. Too enraged to make sure of her first kick which had only brushed against the cheek of the supine man's countenance and made a limp head flop over, Blondie drew her foot back for another, more vigorous try. In the middle of this, Blondie was unexpectedly grabbed off her feet and moved in a half-circle while being held up to then be gently deposited there on the hallway floor further away from the attacked orderly.

Still too mad to care exactly why the naked smelly guy had just done that, sprinting to where she was and preventing her from taking a deserved revenge, Blondie was prevented from screaming at him by a calm growl, "Headddd haaarrrrddd. Brrrreeaaakk tooooeeessss."

Even more astonishing, Blondie's hands were next taken in a firm grip so that one of her hands was put palm-down upon the naked guy's left palm for him to give several soft, reassuring pats with the fingers of his other hand onto the top of her gripped hand. Smiling at a dumbfounded Blondie, Xander let go.

Stepping over to the orderly who clearly in the past had done something unforgivable to one of his girls, Xander shoved apart with one foot this man's legs so that they were fully outstretched. Looking over his shoulder at Blondie, Xander lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

Blondie nodded.

Xander's superhuman kick done right into the orderly's crotch completely boosted the man's body several feet off the floor and sent him well away down the cross corridor in a mid-air arc, accompanied by a whistling squeal from the insensible guy now owning a pair of ruptured testicles. Apparently, that amount of tremendous pain was reacted to even by the comatose.


	8. Chapter 8

Later on, Xander tried to convince himself he couldn't be blamed for it, leading them all into a trap.

He'd been _busy,_ okay? What with all the running to the far end of their building and then entirely ripping off in one big yank another one of those sliding security doors from its ceiling track that was blocking the group's escape from the insane asylum. Hey, to be fair, this was the same way Xander had been dragged fighting all the time even in his confining straitjacket, leather gag, and shackles from the rear courtyard to his cell six frakkin' months ago, so he naturally picked that way out for them.

From what he could only dimly remember since back then when a raging Hyena had earned herself a thorough beating from the guards throughout every step during this, that courtyard had been the drop-off point by a police car where their crazy prisoner was released into the asylum's custody. Behind the main building, there'd been a big open asphalted space in the center for the road wide enough to turn around, with staff parking at the sides of the surrounding tall brick wall, and at the wall's opposite end a metal gate with a guard shack. That gate hadn't looked like it was meant to do anything more than to bar any trespasser from getting in, or more importantly, leaving the asylum of their own free will.

Right now, Xander was showing off his free will by kicking open the back door completely off its hinges with a bare foot. This panel went sailing away into the darkness of the middle of the night, landing with a loud clatter somewhere in the distance of the rear courtyard. Putting his foot down on the hallway tiles after yet another astonishing demonstration of superhuman strength, the naked man glanced around with his sole eye to make one last check if the girls following him were still there.

As a matter of fact, Babydoll, Blondie, Sweet Pea, Rocket, and Amber were right behind him, all of them waiting to tag along while they contemplated how their stripped-to-his-skin rescuer's recent actions had just provided them with one more display of a certain…bounciness…factor.

Afterwards too, that was at least _their_ justification over why they hadn't brought up either the possibility of a trap.

In unison, the group rushed out of the asylum, down the low concrete staircase leading from the first floor's threshold, and out onto the roadway asphalt, directly towards the gate a hundred feet ahead-

From all sides of the parking lot, car headlights came on. Stopping short, Xander and the girls raised their hands to shield their dazzled eyes. Peering past these, they saw beyond the unexpected illumination numerous asylum guards and staff orderlies getting up where these people had been crouching down alongside the cars until tonight's escapees came into view. Many of the asylum personnel were evidently ready to inflict a serious takedown as could be seen by the nightsticks and billy clubs they were holding. That was bad enough, but what really chilled Xander's blood were the several men who were also carrying police-style riot shotguns now aimed in their direction.

Snapping his head around to stare ahead, Xander then noticed a couple more guys toting their guns and moving in front of the closed rear gate where they'd been standing outside the courtyard's brick wall. An additional quick glance over his shoulder confirmed how much trouble they were in at seeing still more people coming out of the opening of what was left of the back door.

Amber was the first to angrily growl at realizing who'd just shown themselves, "That's Doctor Gorski and Blue Jones, her bootlicker!"

Sure enough, there was an older woman dressed in a physician's white coat and shifting nervously next to her was some greasy-haired dude bearing a suspicious resemblance to a weasel walking upright on two legs. Surrounding this pair were even more asylum reinforcements with their own weaponry.

Xander frantically tried to think of a way out of their current predicament. He still had a good chance to get away, using what remained of his supernaturally-granted speed and strength even if the former Sunnydale resident's multiple possessions were rapidly draining away into nothingness due to this world's lack of magic. That wouldn't help the girls with him, though. It was impossible for him to carry them all at one time in a hasty scramble over the courtyard wall or while punching through the shut entry gate, not without causing the armed asylum personnel to instantly start shooting.

Wait…his possessions…

There was something about Xander's several mental passengers that this man groaned to himself over taking so _damn_ long to remember at last! Not that she'd ever bothered to volunteer the information in the first place to him at any time of the whole half-year her host was stuck in a smelly jail cell! Of course, Sineya the first Slayer had been so pissed off by the enjoining spell the original Scooby Gang used to defeat their cyborg enemy known as Adam that later on she'd tried to kill them all in their dreams.

That hadn't worked out then simply because Buffy told Miss Bad Hair to stuff it just before waking up which also saved the others in their various beds from succumbing to Sineya's psychic attack.

The _others._

Shifting in less than a blink of an eye from the material world to that of the spirit plane, Xander glared at the faint image of a young African woman blandly peering at him through the thick dreadlocks falling over her painted face.

Xander inwardly snarled at the possession which was a result of him undergoing the enjoining spell so many years ago, *Listen, you old bitch, I thought we had the same deal like the rest of the gang in my head! I'm in charge and you can help or not, but nobody screws it up for all of us!*

Sineya just sneered back at Xander without otherwise responding. Seeing that, the man tried something else.

*Fine, so you'd really like to see me get a load of buckshot in my ass, but what about them?*

Xander brought up a mental picture of his companions, the five girls with him in the courtyard. *You gonna stay in your big snit when they get punished to the max? However bad things were for them here, it'll get a whole lot worse now, and you know it! They're innocents…just like you were, once.*

That last parting shot caused Sineya's sour face to promptly smooth out into a blank expression. A couple of seconds later, the Slayer did a infinitesimal shrug of her shoulders and her right hand was next brought up with blinding speed to thrust this entire part of her body right into Xander's immaterial skull.

At that point, Sineya's lips curved into a rather malicious smile when Xander shuddered in his sudden agony. This arrogant male might've now been granted a portion of her power just like the last disrespectful occasion at the Hellmouth, but he forgot to stipulate that it wouldn't hurt. Even if he had, though, Sineya wasn't all that sure utilizing the searching aspect of her Slayerness in such an unusual way could be done without any harmful side effects.

It would be most interesting if it actually succeeded, however. Over millennia of transferring her demonic essence into the next girl chosen to be the Slayer, Sineya had no difficulty at all in finding these young females wherever they might be on the entire planet. A worldwide range had continued even when a certain witch cast a spell to wake up every Potential at the same time, and Sineya obviously went along with this then, however reluctantly, as noted by the age-old possession in Xander's mind.

One thing the First Slayer had never done was to seek her newest human embodiment in another, separate dimension. What would be the point, exactly? She'd been created by the Shadowmen to pass on her vampire slaying attributes to the female inhabitants of her home dimension instead of elsewhere, so why bother? Even if she decided to try anyway, there was the slight problem of Sineya herself being unable to travel to that different dimension. Her powers didn't work that way.

Unless in that far-off dimension there existed: a red-haired woman still not yet thirty years old with enough raw magical strength to crack apart continents in their entirety, had been through the same enjoining spell as Xander Harris, and was at present worriedly examining the empty spot in a deserted office building where her yellow-crayon friend had vanished from less than an hour ago…

Out in the courtyard, Doctor Gorski was about to imperiously demand from the small group of escaped patients that they submit to being placed in restraints and returned to their rooms. Afterwards, she'd fully get to the bottom of tonight's bizarre events, including all those unbelievable stories of how a single nameless maniac caused so much damage. Even if this psychiatrist in charge of the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane had already seen for herself the wrecked security doors and injured staff, it was totally impossible for one person to do all that. Humans simply weren't strong enough to rip off steel doors with their bare hands and beat up almost a dozen guards, even in a fit of hysterical strength.

No, somebody had to be lying. Worse of all, it'd happened on the same night when a surprise inspection visit by the state medical license board had a carload of doctors enter the rear courtyard at the very same time when all the alarm bells went off, signifying an inmate escape attempt. These same doctors were now observing everything from their courtyard corner, where they'd been hustled minutes before by some staff personnel to keep them both safe and unaware of how the guards might be a little…overenthusiastic in recapturing the asylum's most notorious resident. Who, at the moment, was stark naked while standing motionless in the middle of the courtyard along with his accomplices, his remaining eye closed tight as if everyone would go away if he couldn't see them.

This was going to require extremely careful handling. All Doctor Gorski needed now was for things to turn out as an even bigger disaster than what'd already gone on, putting her whole career into the toilet.

Making urgent downward gestures with both hands, the psychiatrist was gratified to see that her subordinates understood what she wanted, lowering their shotguns and other blunt instruments. Good, now all she had to do was to address those young people in the proper brisk, authoritarian tone and they'd hopefully consist to accepting again their incarceration in the correct meek manner. Afterwards, there'd be more than enough time to set up a new and stricter course of treatment for them all. Something on the order of, say, electroshock therapy with the dial turned up as far as it'd go-

Xander came to life, opening his eye and tilting his head back to gaze upwards at the night sky. Staring into the starry heavens, he bayed the first comprehensible word most of the asylum listeners had ever heard from him:

"WILLOW!"


	9. Chapter 9

On guard at one of the corners of the Slayer security perimeter set up tonight around a foreclosed office building, Jessica Barnes glumly thought about how many people were going to yell at her when she and the rest of the squad reported back in at the New Council's Cleveland House. If only she'd been a little bit faster when chopping off that demon's head! Now, Mr. Xander was missing, and it was all her fault-

The white radiance currently pouring from every single office window of the whole structure abruptly became twice as bright, easily stripping away the darkness surrounding this place and its adjacent parking lot.

Turning her head away from this latest awe-inspiring sight of the Red Witch busy at work inside there, Jessica met the sympathetic gaze of her best friend and sister Slayer, Ramona Williams. She then heard from Ramona, "So, since you weren't turned into a snail afterwards or something even worse, I guess Ms. Rosenberg believed you when you told her everything?"

Jessica winced. "Maybe. It just made me feel a lot more guilty, how nice she was throughout it, even though she seemed pretty worried when I got told I could leave." The young Slayer nodded at where the two-story building continued to stay lit up as if there were high-power searchlights turned on inside every room. "I sneaked a peek over my shoulder just before the door closed. You remember how she looked in the dreams we all had, those of us who were asleep, right after Ms. Rosenberg cast the empowering spell which changed Potentials everywhere into Slayers? Pure white hair and glowing all over? That was starting again, the last couple of seconds I saw her."

Ramona and the other two Slayers, Frances and Dilys, contemplated both this news and how the office building was still shining so brightly. Acting in unspoken accord, all four girls huddled together then took a dozen cautious steps backwards to get them further away, just in case. It didn't help all that much in making them feel less nervous now, though.

* * *

Inside the office building, Willow Rosenberg fully entered the magical state of being which she tended to call 'the safe mode' where this witch got ready to manifest her powers in the next dimension over before checking on things. Just like in her hacking days when a computer had the possibility of booting up as a malfunctioning operating system the next time you switched it on, it was far wiser to investigate the problem in a diagnostic mode where you could fix stuff then and there without making it even worse. Considering that magic gone wrong could be _really_ dangerous to anybody wandering by and giving it a careless poke, Willow made a habit of prudently putting herself slightly out of phase with her home reality whenever called in by the New Council to inspect the latest supernatural accident encountered by their organization.

Even now, despite Xander getting snatched up tonight by an unexpected portal to someplace else - and it could be _anywhere_ \- Willow harshly dealt with her growing anxiety to instead put it aside and stay as calm as possible. Going totally to pieces at the moment wouldn't help bring back this missing Scooby, so concentrate on the basics. She was presently out of harm's way in safe mode, and that meant starting with the magic scanning.

Bingo! There were traces of a portal right where Xander had been, just as she'd been told by that little Slayer who kept apologizing throughout this for something that wasn't her fault. Nope, it was all due to that stupid demon who'd been fumbling around with escape spells then while trying to get away in one piece. Got what he deserved, too.

Hmmm… That portal looked a little odd, for a value of 'magically' odd. She hadn't ever come across exactly one like this, so reach out a bit further with her powers while staying secure in this other-reality where nothing would seriously affect the witch in any way. Not materially, not metaphysically, not temporally. Kind of like being behind a good, thick wall while a faithful robot bomb-squad mascot sniffed around a suspicious package-

 _Yeow!_

Willow instantly yanked back her magical probe. In her present dimension, the glowing-white witch gaped at what'd just revealed itself as the most malignant trap ever discovered by this former Sunnydale resident. Floating several feet above the office building floor with her legs tucked under tailor-fashion, Willow warily eyed this crack into another level of existence which possessed several very troublesome state of affairs having to do with that portal.

First of all, it led to a place where there was _no_ magic. At all. Or, even if there was, she hadn't been able to find any trace of this in her quick probe. As for that, even doing a hasty peek into there for however short it'd been had given Willow a grim warning that it was extremely dangerous for any kind of magical practitioner.

Willow knew without the least sort of false modesty that she was presently the most powerful spell-caster on the planet. Go through that portal without some sort of protections, however, and she'd at once be sucked dry of every erg of magical energy by a world which was completely devoid of that supernatural force. The closest comparison would be trying to fill up the Grand Canyon, all one-mile-deep of it, with a single five-gallon bucket of water.

Oh, there were sure to be ways to safeguard yourself against that hazard, and she could think of some offhand. It'd still be decidedly risky, and not to be attempted without good cause.

Xander was in there. Good cause, check.

However, that lead to the other main problem which was horrifying enough on its own. Past the portal, the world shown there was running along at a serious temporal ratio much higher than Willow's home dimension. About 4,500 to 1, as near as she could judge.

Closing her eyes in dismay, Willow went over the equations in her head again. It'd been nearly an hour all in all since the Cleveland Slayer squads led by one of the original Scoobies had seen him vanish into nowhere, frantically called for help, and had the Red Witch teleport from Scotland into the office building in response. Sixty minutes multiplied by four point five thousand equals…

Groaning under her breath, Willow finished with, "Six _months!_ He's gonna be pissed!"

Willow dolefully regarded the portal again and extended her probe with all due care to examine it once more. After making a slight, necessary tweak with this magical probe, Willow left it in contact with the portal to give her time to think and also pick up any additional information which might present itself. The only good thing about the whole mess was than in Willow's current out-of-phase situation, time was now frozen on this side of the portal. Not a single instant would pass for anyone else out in the other dimension where Giles, Buffy, and the others were waiting, allowing her the chance to come up with some kind of plan that'd find Xander wherever he might be in that magic-less world and get him back before he died of old age.

As for the other side of the portal, Willow now sped up her mental perceptions to match the time difference there. It wasn't all that hard, and it permitted the Red Witch an equal amount of time to share with an unaware Xander. Who, hopefully, wasn't getting into too much trouble at the moment.

Satisfied at last, Willow said out loud, "Okay, Xan, it's Resolve Face time. You can yell at me later for not getting you back faster, and I promise to bake you lots of cookies to make up for it. Promise! Just give me a few minutes for another one of our usual schemes where we save each other from getting killed and stop another apocalypse, all right?"

Let's see, now…

No, that won't…

How about…?

Oh, poopy pants. No matter how she tried working it out, there wasn't any certain way for a single witch of doing everything at the same time. Opening wider and maintaining the portal without having a terminal transference of magic into it akin to yanking out a mythical bath plug under the Pacific Ocean, safely searching for Xander (who could be anywhere and doing anything in that world), making sure he was ready to come home, accomplishing this, and then closing for once and all that nasty portal. Willow was at most 90% confident she could pull it off all by herself, but that wasn't good enough. It had to be nothing less than perfect, considering the stakes.

That meant asking for help from people who loved Xander as much as she did-

Through magic itself, a young woman who'd never lost the link among her Sunnydale family done years ago to bring low the demon cyborg named Adam now heard a desperate appeal:

*WILLOW!*

Far too swiftly for even Slayer reflexes to react immediately, the white light coming from the office building windows burst into eye-searing radiance, and every pane of glass blew outwards.

By the time every one of the mystical warrior girls dove to the ground and had the numerous flying glass shards harmlessly pass by overhead, it was all over with.

* * *

Snarling at the surrounding asylum staff momentarily taken aback by him yelling the name of his yellow-crayon friend, Xander caught from out of the corner of his remaining eye a bright green vertical disk about six feet high and a yard wide popping into existence a couple inches above the road asphalt.

Reaching out with surpassing swiftness to grab the arm of the nearest girl but still making sure not to pull hard enough to break bones, dislocate that limb or even rip it loose, Xander lifted Sweet Pea completely off her feet. There just wasn't any time for explanations, even if they'd been believed, not when they needed to get away right now. Twisting his unclad body around, the naked man threw Sweet Pea directly at the green disk. Tumbling through the air, this terrified girl hit the vertical face of the flat object thinner than a sheet of paper…and vanished from sight.

The audience composed of asylum orderlies, senior staff, and a visiting group of doctors from the state watched in continuing shock as that madman sprang for the next pair of girls close by. Again, these young ladies screaming in fear were also hurled into that impossible emerald object. Amber and Blondie also completely disappeared, without any trace of their passage shown on the disk.

Seeing that, Babydoll and Rocket instinctively shied away when the bearded lunatic lunged for them. One other person among the gaping crowd was jerked out of his daze at seeing this.

Blue Jones, thinking quicker than virtually anyone else, understood that _somehow_ the little cunt he'd earlier taken a substantial bribe from her stepfather to shut her up via a lobotomy arranged for tonight was on the verge of thwarting that medical atrocity. Even if it was happening right this minute by such a far-fetched event which nobody was going to believe afterwards, who cared? That bitch was going to get away!

Unseen by Doctor Gorski numbly observing how the fourth girl was now propelled through that bizarre object, where just like the others she vanished, Blue Jones pulled out from a rear pants pocket his own gun, a snub-nosed .38 Colt, and trained it with shaking fingers at the girl backing up from the nutso without any clothes approaching her. Hey, all this psychiatric's assistant had to do later on was to claim he'd meant to bring down that crazy guy by any means possible! Hitting the girl instead? Well, too bad, but things like that happened-

 _Bang!_

The bullet fired by Blue Jones shot past about fifteen inches from the left side of Babydoll's head, and went on to collide with the far upper edge of the green disk. This dangerous piece of tiny metal moving at close to a thousand feet per second then departed too from this dimension to overtake four young women and speedily arrive at some other reality connected by a portal cast by a witch with a little help from her friends.

* * *

From where they were standing in a line abreast, holding hands with each other, Giles, Faith, Buffy, and Dawn were too immersed in the magic rushing through them to overtly react to the loud _crack!_ sound coming from overhead. None of this small group paid attention either to the next noise of something ripping through the office room wall behind the New Council members.

Giles and the rest had a blinding white light overlaid upon them all, which still showed they were clad in their nightwear of assorted bathrobes, pajamas, sweatpants, and shorts. Just like the last of their company, they'd been awoken a mere hour ago from their beds at the news Xander Harris had unwillingly passed through a portal due to enemy action. The most powerful magic-user their organization possessed had then gone to investigate, leaving the others behind at their Scotland headquarters and preparing for whatever further involvement as necessary.

Of course, this included being abruptly teleported to Cleveland without any warning at all and joining in with Willow as back-up magical batteries to rip open a portal to another dimension with no magic and where time moved a lot faster, find their missing comrade, and bring him back, because he'd just yelled for help. Well, that was basically just another day in the trenches for the Scooby Gang, so no big deal.

Though, even while pouring an enormous portion of her personal power into the portal helped kept open by Dawn's bleeding free right hand, Willow did notice the familiar and utterly despised part of being shot at by somebody. In her position at the middle of the line, clasping Buffy and Giles' hands, the witch's pure white eyes flickered momentarily into midnight black before regaining their original shade.

* * *

Doctor Gorski flinched away from the sudden loud explosion just arm's-length away from her. Most of the other asylum staff in their group also did the same, but a couple of the braver crowd made for Blue Jones to get him to stop shooting! Not that they could move over there in time, even when this human weasel took aim again at the pair rushing together towards the green disk.

Xander was holding up Babydoll at a dead run, both hands under her armpits while keeping this girl right in front of the naked man. With any luck, that'd force the asshole behind them to shoot through him to have any chance of hurting one of his ladies! Anyway, the portal was just a few steps away, close enough to jump for it, so Xander did it, still doing his best to protect Babydoll all through this.

 _Bang!_

This time, Blue Jones' aim was perfect. The bullet zipped across the area behind the main asylum building, making a direct bee-line which culminated in it coming within a fraction of an inch from the exact center of the back of Xander's skull. This killing round was even close enough for the heat of its passage to scorch a tiny part of the untrimmed hairs of someone who just seconds before had been granted the personal bulletproof protection of Darth Willow.

Who, by the by, had also added to her protection spell a teensy-weensy retribution curse.

Just before Xander and Babydoll vanished into the portal (which also blinked completely out of existence then), the bullet about to hit him impossibly transported itself…to the same rear spot of Blue Jones' skull.

Occurring far too fast for this greedy piece of shit to realize he'd just killed himself, the head of Mr. Jones exploded, spraying blood and brain tissue all over those nearby.

This included Doctor Gorski, naturally, who shrieked and unsuccessfully swiped at the body fluids now covering her face. This continued for several more moments, all without that arrogant doctor now about to have her life become much more difficult even noticing that each and every one of tonight's escapees were irreparably gone.

* * *

In an office building a dimension away, the other side of the portal vanished. A line of people sagged from their previous straight-backed position as the overwhelming magic of a moment before shut off and turned them loose.

Faith Lehane, in between taking a deep breath, sent a considering smirk towards the point on the floor a few yards ahead where five girls around Dawn's age were lying sprawled out in a heap of female limbs. Right on top of the heap in his own limp position was Xander Harris, completely starkers.

Knowing she'd eventually pay for it, especially when the X-man lifted his shaggy head and bared his teeth at her for saying this, Faith nonetheless loudly announced to all there, "Musta really been some party!"


	10. Chapter 10

_Thirty-six hours later:_

The young huntress stalked her prey.

Any successful predator knew better than to always depend upon fang and claw, however well they could use these weapons. No, you had to _think_ about the quarry's weaknesses. Become aware of their usual habits, scout for the resulting vulnerabilities, and then strike hard and fast without any trace of mercy.

Just after Xander Harris left the Cleveland House cafeteria with the double doors swinging shut after this man and his companions, Jessica Barnes rushed out of the side hallway where she'd been lurking for the past fifteen minutes. Stopping right in front of this surprised man, the teenage Slayer threw her arms around him in a powerful hug. Still embracing her Head of House, Jessica let loose a unbroken babble of apologies.

"I'msosorryMisterXanderI'lltryhardertokilleverydemonnexttime! Pleasedon'tdisappearlikethatagain! EverybodyblamedmesoI'mreallygladyou'rebackevenifitwasforalongtime!"

Finally letting go of a stunned Xander when she finished her rapid-fire declaration, Jessica backed up with a very red face while nervously nodding at the other two New Council senior staff watching all this with barely-restrained laughter. Taking the opportunity to leave while the getting was good, Jessica waved goodbye at them all and rapidly scuttled away and out of sight into the side hallway where she'd waited to ambush Xander, feeling much better now at having everything off her chest.

Xander, on the other hand, was morosely waiting for what was sure to come next.

Indeed, Dawn Summers now crooned in a gleeful sing-song from where she was grinning at her position next to Xander, "Somebody's got a biiig, biiig crush!"

Standing at the opposide side of the main corridor from where an annoyed man was glowering at Dawn, Willow then contributed in her own very amused tone, " _Mister_ Xander? Is that normal for the house to call you?"

Xander irritably lifted a hand and scrubbed his palm hard against his face. Putting aside the quick pleasure of once more having his eyepatch back along with a haircut and a professional shave all accomplished yesterday, Xander growled after letting his hand fall down at his side, "We compromised on it months ago! I damn well wasn't going to be Mr. Harris, and some of the kids weren't comfortable with using only my first name, especially the girls from the more conservative countries. Mister Xander was something we all could live with, so what's it to you?"

Dawn wasn't going to let him off that easy. "And the fact that our lunch lasted twice as long as it should've because the rest of the house Slayers lined up to give you their own personal hugs from them today? I caught a few of them double-dipping, too!"

Looking uncomfortable, Xander sighed. "That has to be part of the whole latest bout of wacky mojo for me, I guess." He glanced at where Willow was beaming at him, before appealing to her. "There really isn't anything you can do, changing me back to normal?"

For some reason, that last question caused both Dawn and Willow to impolitely snicker. Willow recovered first while Dawn continued to giggle under her breath. The witch dryly informed her best friend from kindergarten on, "Xan, you haven't been normal since our sophomore year, no matter what Buffy wanted! I can't help wondering if everything happening to you in Sunnydale and even after was somehow leading up to this!"

"Oh, whoopee," Xander groused. "I get to be the first ever guy Slayer."

There was a short period of silence in the corridor, as the three New Council members thought about that once more, what they'd all shockingly learned the night before last. Eventually, Willow had to disagree.

"You know that's not quite true, Xan. Sure, your possessions by Sineya and the others wound up with you receiving a lot of the Slayer abilities, but like I said yesterday, Swimmer, Soldier-Boy, and Hyena contributed useful stuff, too."

Xander sent a dubious scowl at Willow. "But you couldn't _find_ them, right? Not even when you went all 'abracadabra' and the glowing white hair, and went through my skull top to bottom with the magic."

Willow ruefully shook her head before correcting Xander, "Nothing obvious, but that doesn't mean you're totally possession-free now. Yes, they might've melted away in that no-magic world at the end, leaving you with your new gifts, but we can't take that for granted. Even with you saying it was okay, there's a limit to how much I would or should poke around in your mind. If they tried hard enough, your inner guests could've hidden away from me. I still made sure your mental protections were a lot stronger, so that Hyena or anything else won't ever do it again, catching you by surprise and putting you under their control."

This last bit of news, however welcome though it was, didn't seem to cheer Xander all that much up. He managed, "Fine, that takes care of _me._ I get my own set of superhero powers that I'll need to be trained in, all while wondering what the catch is gonna be. You can bet it'll be at the worse possible time, naturally. Plus, I still have to worry about those four gatecrashers kicking back in my subconscious and maybe having a party at my expense sooner or later!"

Pausing to take a breath, Xander went on in the same gloomy tone to an intent Dawn and Willow. "What really bothers me is what happened to the girls who came with me from that awful place. It's one thing for me to be the universe's butt-monkey, but they didn't deserve any of it!"

The two women hearing this met each others' gazes, identical slow smiles of delight soon appearing on their faces. This time, it was Dawn's turn to speak first.

"Is that the whole reason you've been avoiding them so far? I mean, all you did back there in your horrible lunatic asylum after six consecutive months of straightjacketed imprisonment was to keep a guy from stabbing them, beat up a dozen orderlies, smash your way out in escaping along with them, and then got Willow's help while being shot at! Boy, they must really hate you for everything!"

Willow nodded enthusiastically in agreement, to next seize Xander's right arm in both of hers. Hooking her left elbow through his, the witch waited for Dawn to do the same to the puzzled man on his other side. Once this was done, the two young women began towing him along, both now having a decidedly joyful air around themselves.

Trying to figure out what was going on, Xander walking with his girls now felt his blood suddenly turn cold when Willow chortled, "Gosh, it just occurred to me, Buffy said this morning that she, Faith and Giles were having a meeting at lunchtime in the main office with those same five people. Why don't we pop in on them and have a nice chat together?"

* * *

Peering over his glasses, Rupert Giles formally asked the young woman in her armchair beyond his desk who'd been chosen to speak for the others, "Have you all made your decision, Ms. Barrett?"

Victoria glanced from side to side, checking out once more the rest of them seated in a semi-circle in front of the mature Englishman running things here. Catching her eye, Shelley and Isabelle Lochinvar, Anne Montez, and Jilynn Tanaka nodded in turn.

Bringing back her attention to the older man patiently waiting, Victoria also nodded. "Yes, Mr. Giles. We're staying."

"Very well." After saying this, Giles picked up a pen from the desktop and made a note on the sheet of paper resting there. He then sent a kindly smile at Victoria, broadening it to also take in the remaining girls. "Now that's been determined, we can proceed further. The first order of business is to create new identities for everyone. I presume you'd like to retain your original names?"

"That's right," Victoria confirmed, with the others joining in with their own murmured corroborations.

Despite herself, Victoria couldn't help thinking somewhat regretfully that even among each other, none of them had wanted to keep using their asylum nicknames of Babydoll, Sweet Pea, Rocket, Blondie, and Amber. Of course, those same names did come with far too many bad memories of their stay in that awful mental institution, plus if they were going to start all over again somewhere else, it might as well as be with what their parents had originally picked for them when they'd all been born. In another… _dimension._

This had come as an absolute shock to them all, but it'd just been one of many other bewildering jolts. At least nobody had actually gone to pieces over what they'd been carefully informed throughout yesterday. Ironic that, seeing how each of them had been basically railroaded into a loony bin by the authorities when for their own individual reasons the girls had fallen afoul of people supposedly charged to look after them.

Now, they were in a whole new world where there was actually magic, along with vampires, demons, witches, and much more. That was difficult enough to take in, but just as staggering had been the news passed onto the five girls they were basically in the future, almost fifty years on. Also, their former home dimension was running a lot faster than this one, so that for every hour which went by here, about six months did the same back there.

Victoria took a moment aside for herself from where Mr. Giles was still outlining about what the New Council could do for their latest guests. Paying only a trace of her attention to this man, the girl once known as Babydoll instead thought about what she and her friends had talked in the morning just before this meeting, specifically that information about the time difference.

Their discussion ended with Rocket and Sweet - no, Isabelle and Shelley - admitting they were the only ones who had family that might've missed them in the fifteen or so years which had already elapsed on the other side of the magical portal bringing them here. These sisters were kind of sad about that, but at least they had each other and their best friends with them now. She, Anne, and Jilynn were genuinely touched by learning this from the Lochinvars, and it made up quite a bit for these other three girls at not feeling particularly interested in going back to their original dimension.

Yes, the honest-to-goodness witch with the red hair had made it clear they could return any time they wanted. It'd take a tremendous amount of her magic, and there was the important point of the longer they delayed their decision, the more things would really change in the other dimension. Victoria and the rest of their small group had already seen proof of this in the few miles of the ride from the office building they'd appeared in to the New Council's Cleveland House.

All the cars on the roads had been futuristic-looking, sleek and smooth, and then they'd been introduced to color television with hundreds of channels in their guest rooms…

Victoria closed her eyes for a second in wry amusement. Some of the stuff she'd watched there, quickly changing channels when the embarrassment or horror or incomprehension were just too much, had been a good part of her decision to permanently stay. However strange things were here now, the good and the bad of it, Victoria thought she could still get used to them, but this would only apply even more over time in her previous dimension. It'd been just about a day and a half here for her and the other girls, but that was nearly twenty years on in there. Give it a _week_ here and nearly a century would go by there.

Even so, Willow the witch (and wasn't that a giggle?) promised they could go back in another day or two, with the best false papers the New Council could provide and sufficient funds to last everyone for a while, enough to live on until they took up their new identities. It'd still be chancy, especially for Victoria who was the one targeted by her abusive stepfather. That evil man had institutionalized his stepdaughter, even using the accidental death of her younger sister, in an attempt to steal Victoria's sizable inheritance from her real parents.

No, she'd managed to escape from him for once and all, and it'd stay that way. Going back risked for Victoria the likelihood (however remote) of being recognized by the authorities searching for five girls and a nude male lunatic who'd somehow disappeared into thin air from a mental institution in front of multiple witnesses.

Actually, though Victoria would never know of it given her decision to stay in this new dimension, both she and the other girls had nothing to fear on the other side. And it all had to do with a certain dead weasel.

There'd been no possible way for Dr. Gorski to cover up the death of Blue Jones, not when he fatally took a bullet from out of nowhere through his head. The prompt investigation concerning both this and the mass inmate escape (which had undoubtedly been done through some sort of stage magic trickery pretending to be the real thing) soon brought to the state's attention the horrific conditions at the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane. This was followed by the discovery of Blue Jones' hiding place in his asylum quarters of numerous blackmail documents, including the evidence he'd kept of the letter from Miss Barrett's stepfather of their plans to have this unfortunate young woman eventually lobotomized into drooling idiocy.

That quickly put the stepfather in prison while serving hard time, which didn't last very long, what with him mysteriously committing suicide the first month he was incarcerated by stabbing himself a dozen times in the back. As for Dr. Gorski, she and most of the inmate staff were immediately fired, along with losing their medical licenses and having their reputations ruined. Things improved somewhat for the remainder of the asylum patients in the ensuing years.

Finally, the authorities kept up their search for the escaped inmates for the next several months with no luck at all. At length coming to the conclusion they'd probably gotten away free and clear, the investigation was quietly put aside for more urgent criminal proceedings and allowed to become just another cold case. If any of the escapees were ever found - however long it took - the authorities would've just cut a secret deal with them with as little publicity as possible. In return for no charges filed for breaking out of the asylum (though it _would_ be nice to know exactly how it'd been done), the former inmates' records would be sealed and these people would be left alone in peace as long as they kept their mouths shut and behaved like any other law-abiding citizen.

In the case of the one-eyed, hairy guy without a stitch of clothing who'd led the inmate breakout back then and in the process started a bunch of really unbelievable stories over what he'd done throughout this, the last included hopefully the absolute curbing of his nudist tendencies.

The main reason, however, for Victoria, Anne, Shelley, Jilynn, and Isabelle to stay in this new dimension was due to something which definitely wouldn't carry over to their old dimension without a trace of magic. Seated in her armchair, this young woman still felt as if she was bursting with energy from every pore, just as all of them had manifested this since landing in a heap onto each other from out of a portal and then had someone else unexpectedly descend upon the five girls with that man's weight being experienced as remarkably light even spread out among the quintet.

That shouldn't have been possible. After six months stuck in an asylum cell and being fed only institutional slop two or three times a day, Xander Harris would've normally been down to skin and bones, but his mental possessions managed to head that off in order to keep their host alive. Absorbing every molecule of sustenance, the New Council representative stayed reasonably fit throughout his entire captivity, losing no more than a couple of pounds throughout everything.

Yet, all of the girls lying on the office building floor were no more affected by a full-grown man falling onto them, any more than they would've been by a feather pillow. A _small_ one, for a doll's bed.

Victoria turned her head, and she gazed across the room to the couch by the far wall, at where the two oldest Slayers of the New Council were looking directly back at the newest Slayers worldwide. All five of 'em, with somebody else who had his own bizarre superpower boost presently having lunch with Dawn and Willow.

* * *

When they all got back to the Cleveland House that night, Buffy Summers waved a rather distracted good-bye-for-now at a supremely smelly Xander being taken to the gym showers with a donated jacket wrapped around his middle. She'd then headed for the staff lounge with its attached bar for those times when people needed a drink in celebration, sorrow, or to adjust to the latest brand of supernatural gonzo-ness for the New Council. Ever since college and the 'beer bad' episode, Buffy usually refrained from hitting the booze, but if there wasn't a really good reason for this tonight, when would there ever be?

Reaching the bar, Buffy grabbed a bottle of Giles' best Scotch and poured herself a stiff one. Pausing to fill up to the brim the other glass held ready by her companion who'd followed along, both Buffy and Faith tossed down their drinks in one gulp. Next came another refill, though the two women refrained from draining their glasses immediately, due to Faith wanting to know the most important thing right away.

"How long did it take for you to catch on, B?"

Glumly letting the last drops of eighteen-year Ancient Reserve Glenfiddich trickle down her throat, Buffy admitted to the other woman also bellied up to the bar, "About two seconds, maybe. He's a _Slayer!_ "

They drank again. Buffy poured again. Eyeing her warrior sister, Faith asked further, "And…?"

"And what?!" snapped Buffy, giving a considering estimation of the dwindling level of the bottle she was still holding in one hand.

Faith blew out a gusty sigh. "You didn't notice the X-man's latest harem? What they are?"

That got Faith a decidedly evil glare from Buffy, who then shrugged in annoyance. "Yes! All of them are Slayers, too! Which, compared to what happened to him, isn't all that strange!"

After snarling that last irascible remark, Buffy brought her whiskey glass to her lips and began rapidly inhaling another couple of ounces of fine liquor which didn't deserve such rough treatment. Especially not what else occurred to the Glenfiddich when Faith perfectly timed her next announcement.

"Uh, B, they ain't just Slayers. Those gals, they're _originals_ , like you an' me, but nobody else."

Faith leaned away sufficiently far enough so that Buffy's instant spit-take failed to spray all over her. After coughing for several seconds, a wild-eyed Buffy next demanded while wiping her mouth, "How the hell do you know that?!"

Giving a dismissive shrug, Faith answered with, "We can all sense each other, right? Us Slayer bitches, from both of us to the wettest behind their ears newbie, put us together an' we get a kinda buzz inside our heads. Well, 'cept in your case, it's a li'l different. Any of 'em, what Red woke up either at Sunnyhell or after, they don't feel like you. From them five, on the other hand, I caught the exact same thing you give off."

Buffy shakily put down the whisky bottle on the countertop. She muttered, "Yeah, now that you mention it, I can tell you apart from any other Chosen potential since Willow did the empowerment spell. I just thought it was her influence on the Slayer line. It didn't seem important because you never said anything before now, so I didn't either."

A sudden thought occurred to Faith, who cocked her head towards Buffy. "What 'bout Kendra? Did the same shit happen?"

Frowning, Buffy considered this, clearly trying to remember that long-gone Jamaican Slayer. "I'm not really sure. The whole 'another Slayer' bit back then totally grabbed my attention, so if I felt what you're talking about, I probably assumed that was just part of it. Then, you came along and might've done the same thing. Neither of us had anybody to compare it against until Wils cast her big spell."

Faith nodded. "Yeah, that sounds right."

She glanced down at her filled glass and lifted it to sip at the brownish liquid for several mouthfuls. After doing that, Faith put down her now-empty tumbler and stared contemplatively at where Buffy was looking off into the distance. The silence among the pair was next broken by Faith.

"Are we gonna tell 'em? Giles, Red, Xander, the kiddies?"

Buffy sent a disbelieving grimace towards a waiting Faith. "Kids? They're just a couple years younger than you!"

"Don't matter," Faith dryly observed. "They're marked, same as us, an' that don't make a damn bit of sense! Ain't no way whatever Xan stumbled over by complete accident the only ladies in that other place who could be Slayers! I'm telling you, B, something funny - an' not in a ha-ha way - happened tonight."

Buffy reluctantly agreed. "There could be any kinds of explanations for everything, Faith. For one, when Wils brought them back from that other dimension, we were part of it. Maybe, I don't know, our Slayerness passed onto Xander and them? You can't say the Scoobies haven't had even weirder things happen to us! Just off the top of my head, there's me and Angel possessed by Sunnydale High ghosts, Dawn falling in love because of her letterman jacket, or Xander splitting into his macho self and his wimpy self."

Faith had to grin. "Woulda liked seeing that last one. Anyways, I think we better tell 'em. Otherwise, it could start off some real problems with alla the Slayers, the newbies and the ex-Potentials. Worse case is, they get into it among each other, like we fucked up big time back then."

"You make it sound like those five girls are planning to stay," Buffy pointed out, trying to ignore what Faith had uncomfortably reminded her of far too much drama at the Hellmouth before it and an entire California city collapsed into a sinkhole.

Faith's sudden smirk showed Buffy the other Slayer hadn't missed her half-hearted attempt to change the subject. Going along nonetheless, Faith said in a more somber tone, "They - alla 'em, not just the X-man - have the look of surviving some serious shit an' not eager to jump back into it. Me, I'm betting we're bringing in a few more mean bitches who can pretty much deal with what we usually stake n' slice after dark. You wanna put down cash money on it?"

Buffy did a wrinkled nose of refusal at a confident Faith. "No! But okay, I'll help with convincing Giles and the rest of the New Council about our latest original Slayers. Them, too. It won't be easy, though."

"Damn straight, B. Just part of the job, is all."

* * *

Even though she'd returned to listening to Mr. Giles explaining how their Slayer training would start tomorrow, Victoria was also aware of being steadily regarded by the two women at the other side of the room. Her previous encounters yesterday with this pair of remarkable females had been odd enough, what with all they had to tell the five girls and what they now were. The culmination of this had been when Miss (no, it was _Miz_ now for unmarried women) Summers had handed around their group a crowbar and instructed each in turn to bend it in two.

Victoria and the others didn't have any trouble whatsoever doing that. The topper had been when the dark-haired stranger also there took the doubled-up crowbar, casually straightened it out, and then tied a series of knots in the crowbar all while nonchalantly introducing herself as 'Faith, yo. Uh, on second thought, just call me Faith, okay? You're gonna haveta get a crash course on the slang we got nowadays, 'cause alla you sound like a bunch of grandmas an' that ain't gonna work. Also, don't nobody dare use 'ma'am' around me and we'll get along just fine. Over to you, Red."

That had been…strange. But encouraging, too. Whoever these women were, they were honest. Sometimes brutally so, when the specific details of _who_ and _what_ the Slayers fought nightly were discussed. Even with that, the newcomers sensed a vast sisterhood behind the scenes, one that would gladly welcome them into their brave company.

A short time later, the five girls had been left on their own to talk about it without interference. A quick check of everyone's opinion had them in various levels of enthusiasm in both staying here and becoming a part of the New Council. Most of them weren't very thrilled by the prospect of going out after sunset and shoving a piece of wood deep into the chest of a vampire arising from their grave, particularly when it wasn't a made-up event in a horror movie.

Yet, just as they'd already been warned by the two older women as senior Slayers, Anne, Isabelle, Victoria, Jilynn, and Shelley continued to feel increasing aggression and a primal need to hunt and _kill_ something which they could feel lurking just out of range. That feeling got even worse after dark, forcing the girls to gather in Victoria's room and compare their growing contradictory compulsions to protect and prey outside the Cleveland House.

An unexpected knock at the room door produced two women there when this was opened, Miz Summers and, um, Faith. This latter Slayer had been the one to remark from out of the corner of their mouth to the smaller blonde at her side, "Yeah, they've got it bad. Not sure if me an' you were this eager our first coupla days, but like you said, a few hours of kicking their asses in the dojo should settle 'em down."

The fierce grins then borne by each senior Slayer definitely didn't reassure Victoria and the rest. At least, when they all dragged themselves to their beds afterwards and fell into an exhausted slumber, the bruises were completely gone by the next morning.

* * *

And now, they were about to formally sign up with the New Council-

As one, seven feminine heads snapped around in unison to stare at the closed door to Mr. Giles' office. Just an instant later, this was opened by Xander Harris, who stopped short in the entranceway at being under the hawk-eyed gazes of over a half-dozen very scary ladies.

This frozen scene went on for a few more moments, until from behind Xander, two separate hands reached down to grab and squeeze hard each of this man's buttocks through his pants.

" _Awk!_ " Xander yelped and hopped forwards in surprise. Just days before, this startled reaction would've been quite minor and the accompanying leap no more than an inch or two, at most.

Now, though, a male Slayer landed several yards ahead of his former position, right in the center of the room. Xander twisted his neck around to glare over his right shoulder at where Willow and Dawn were to be seen in the entranceway, high-fiving each other.

Bringing his head back, Xander once again froze at seeing the girls from the asylum in their armchairs. They were all _looking_ at him-

Abruptly remembering the last time this had happened when he wasn't wearing anything else besides a pair of broken shackles, Xander's face turned bright red in complete embarrassment. He seized the chance to glance at Giles instead. At least all the times the former school librarian had seen Xander make a total fool of himself, there'd always been the usual masculine conspiracy that neither of them would ever mention it again.

As for the five girls, they ogled a spruced-up man whose handsomeness was only increased by the stylish eyepatch he was wearing. Now that all the hair from before was gone, a strong jaw was evident in his visage, along with actual ears. When the people formerly named Babydoll, Amber, Rocket, Blondie, and Sweet Pea lowered their gazes below neck level and the clothing there, they developed their own blushes over vividly recalling what had been revealed to them not so long ago.

Strolling into the office, Dawn and Willow went over to join Buffy and Faith on the couch. Settling into there, these four Scoobies continued to watch in fascination everything which then transpired.

Victoria Barrett got up from her seat. With all eyes following her, she walked over to the man who'd rescued them and stopped in front of him, to next thoroughly hug him. With her head pressed under Xander's chin, she whispered for him and the other keen-eared observers, "Thank you."

It was Jilynn Tanaka's turn to arise onto her feet and do the same, approaching Xander's left side to also hug him since Babydoll - Victoria - was still embracing him. This Oriental girl's quiet "Thanks" was just as fervent.

Anne Montez soon did the same, clinging onto Xander's right side, and Shelley and Isabelle Lochinvar did a double-hug onto their hero's wide back.

Rupert Giles relaxed in his chair, a proud look on the New Council Director's lined countenance. He heard drifting from the side couch admiring sniffles, but this Englishman knew better than to glance over there. If Faith caught him seeing her knuckling away a tear, she would surely make him pay dearly in the future.

* * *

Elsewhere on a mental plane, Sineya crouched unblinkingly, as still as a statue. This ultimate predator soon uttered an approving, *Tribe.*

By Sineya, Soldier-Boy remained in his posture of stiffened-spine attention. Even with having no mouth at all, there came contently from him, *Buddies.*

* _Gurgle._ * No one there actually understood what Swimmer had just said, but at least it sounded very satisfied.

Hyena, of course had the last prideful word:

*Pack.*

* * *

Author's Note: And that's all, folks! This seems to be as far as the story goes, with there not being any possible sequel for now.

Finally, in the Sucker Punch movie, the actual names of the main female characters were never revealed, even in the cast list. This forced me to make up these, which wasn't all that bad. It was kind of fun to invent them, using the actresses' lives and other roles as guides for what to call Babydoll and the rest in the Buffyverse. Any guesses on just why I picked them? Put your best suggestions in the reviews!


End file.
